New views of showy South Park skyscraper replacing Olympic, Figueroa car wash

A nearly 60-story high-rise planned for the corner of Olympic and Figueroa is coming into better focus.

New renderings of the South Park project, which would replace a carwash at the intersection across from LA Live, come as the project readies to go before the city’s planning commission next week.

Developer Neman Real Estate Investments plans a 57-story tower with 374 condos, 373 hotel rooms, offices, and shops on the lower floors. The building would sit on six levels of underground parking, and have eight levels of above-ground parking as well, most of which would be wrapped with office space to effectively hide it from view. In all it would provide 838 parking spaces.

Designed by Nardi Associates, the tower would incorporate vertical gardens, rooftop amenity space, and a large atrium for the hotel, renderings show. Landscape design for the project is done by AHBE | MIG.

Closest to the street, the project will feature three floors of retail space. At the sidewalk, the developer plans “a pedestrian-friendly environment which includes shade trees and landscape along the street, enhanced sidewalk paving, lighting and seating” and a covered pedestrian path created by a triangular glass and structural steel “exoskeleton” that make up the building facade.

The project’s draft environmental impact report, which came out about a year ago, estimated that construction could begin as soon as 2020. It’s unclear if that timeline is still accurate.

Neman bought the carwash property in 2014, paying $25 million for the property, located next to Hotel Figueroa. Now there’s a plan to put a 66-story high-rise on the other side of the hotel, on what is now a surface parking lot. That project would hold 220 hotel rooms, 200 condos, and about 94,000 square feet of commercial space.